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Some flavored tobacco products might not be around in Washington for much longer. Senate Bill 5380, which had a hearing Monday in Olympia,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], would ban some kinds of tobacco products in the state, a move that the measure’s supporters say will keep kids off nicotine but opponents say will hurt the economy and limit adults’ free choice.
“Limiting tobacco products that are particularly appealing to young people – the flavored and the candy-like – is a major step toward our goal of keeping all kids from starting to use tobacco,” said state Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. She argued that young people are curious about tobacco products that taste good and those who start using a nicotine product before they are 18 are more likely to use tobacco for the rest of their lives, driving up healthcare costs in the state.
While New Jersey never raised funding for anti-tobacco programs at the full level the CDC has recommended (most states haven’t),[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], New Jersey got close before McGreevey mortgaged away the settlement money. As recently as the 2003 budget year, the state was spending $30 million annually on programs to teach youths about the dangers of smoking and to help adult smokers break their addiction — about two thirds of the $45 million in spending the CDC recommended then for New Jersey. Compared to other states, at that time,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], New Jersey was among the leaders in funding anti-tobacco programs.
The programs funded by Trenton included a pioneering website — njquitnet — for smokers trying to quit and who wanted to communicate with each other for support. There were quit centers at more than a dozen New Jersey hospitals that offered medical services plus group and one-on-one counseling for smokers trying to quit. And there was REBEL,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a grassroots program that started with high schools and eventually went into middle schools and colleges in New Jersey that focused on dissuading youths from trying tobacco.
As of July,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], when the 2010-2011 budget went into effect and state anti-tobacco funding fell from $7.6 million in the previous budget to $600,000 in the current budget that runs through June 30, none of these initiatives are funded by the state. The njquitnet website is defunct. It’s unknown yet whether the remaining $600,000 in the state budget for anti-tobacco programs will stay or be among the proposed cuts when the governor presents his state budget later this month. Either way, with so few state resources dedicated to this cause, Kazimir worries that Big Tobacco will renew its push to get poor people in the state addicted to a habit they can ill afford.
“This is a socio-economic problem,” Kazimir says. “The poorer you are,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the more you smoke. The tobacco companies know that.” Greene,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], of Saint Barnabus, where at least 20 new patients come in every month looking for aid in quitting smoking, says that those smokers left in New Jersey are the hardest cases, the people who are hopelessly addicted and will never break their habit without help.
She fears that without funding for smoking cessation programs,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], that New Jerseyans in their 40s, 50s and 60s who want to quit won’t be able to because there won’t be help for them. Jacobs wants the state to at least preserve in 2012 what little funding it now has for its curtailed anti-tobacco programs. “We need to maintain the flame, so that if and when the money comes back for these programs, there will be infrastructure for them to blossom into fully-functioning programs again.”